


Star Falls

by SimplexityJane



Category: A Song of Ice and Fire - George R. R. Martin
Genre: Baby Theft, Gen, Not the one you're thinking of, Suicidal Thoughts, Suicide, Tragedy, post-partum depression
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-01-16
Updated: 2018-01-16
Packaged: 2019-03-05 17:24:48
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,260
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/13392660
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/SimplexityJane/pseuds/SimplexityJane
Summary: Everything leading up to the moment Ashara Dayne jumps from the Palestone Tower. Imprisonment, loss, lies... this is a tragedy, and no one tried to stop it.





	Star Falls

**Author's Note:**

> This has been something I've thought about for a while, the tragedy of Ashara Dayne. A further warning on the child theft tag: in this, Allyria Dayne is Ashara's biological daughter, but her parents claimed her to stop themselves from being shamed further (remember the Daynes had a pretty nice position in a non-Dornish regime, so they're a bit more likely to be concerned about reputation). I don't know if this is actually canon, but Allyria's birth range certainly indicates that it could be true, and I've run with it. 
> 
> This is a story of a suicide, so you know, trigger warning. If you think you could be triggered by this, please use your discretion.

When Ashara is sequestered away in the Palestone Tower, she doesn’t understand. Not at first.

Then her mother joins her, a padded bodice all she needs to maintain a ruse at the moment, and Ashara goes cold all over.

“You can’t be serious,” she says. Her mother’s eyes are cold blue disks, unflappable. “No, Mother, please. You can’t do this.” Her hands find the gentle swell of her stomach. This child… it’s the only thing she has left, now that she has been sent away from court. Her reputation is ruined, but _she_ doesn’t have to be. Not if she has a child who looks to her as a mother.

“Think, Ashara. You say the father is some Stark, some Northman who could take your child from you in a moment. Isn’t it better that he be raised as a trueborn Dayne, the youngest son of a great and noble House, than as a Snow or a Sand? Your father and I have agreed—”

“To _take my child from me_ ,” Ashara shouted. “It is the _same_.”

Mother grabs her wrists, shaking her head.

“It is _not_ the same, Ashara. You cannot imagine what it is like, the hardships you will face if you claim this child. Until Auron has a child, _you_ are third in line for Sunspear. You could easily make a marriage. Have trueborn children, not fatherless bastards. We _will_ do this, Ashara. You will have a brother or sister, not a son or daughter. It has been decided.”

And looking into those eyes, Ashara knows she has no chance.

0

She writes of a stillbirth, her child kicking at her ribs all the while. _Mother forgive me, and do not take my child from me for this_ , she prays, inking the last few words. All that is left is a signature, which she does as well. She seals the letters, giving them over to Maester Pate. His brown eyes are kind and full of pity, which Ashara is coming to hate. Everyone pities her, now. The ruined girl, never a mother, never a wife.

The Palestone Tower looks over the sea. Ashara looks out, and she wonders, for just a moment, what it would be like to hit the waves from this height.

She stops herself immediately, hand on her swollen belly. She could never kill her child, not after fighting to even have her. Had Father not known about the risks of moon tea, he would have forced it on her as soon as she returned home. Sometimes Ashara thinks he wanted to anyway. He is the only person who does not look at her in pity, but it has been replaced by anger instead.

Her father hates her, her household pities her, and no one thinks to ask if she is content with this arrangement.

0

Ser Barristan’s letter is full of sorrow, and Ashara is touched. They knew each other but little while she was in the capital, though he was ever courteous and kind. He does not go so far as to offer to challenge Brandon Stark to a duel, but she can see his hidden message, beneath the words.

 _If only it had been Brandon Stark_ , she thinks, heart aching.

They had been fools, truly, she and young Ned. They had been clumsy and awkward, but earnest, so very earnest in what they had done. He had apologized, after, for any hurt he might have caused. He had no clue how much he would hurt her, in the end.

If she had written him first, she has no doubt that he would have come to Starfall and married her. But she did not write him, too shocked at her abrupt dismissal from court and Elia’s anger, however justified it was. His family had other troubles, she told herself, and did not write.

Now… now she does not know if she wishes she had written or not.

0

Allyria is perfect, from the first moment of her life. She has a dusting of dark hair and rose-petal skin. Ashara is allowed to hold her, fragile and beautiful, for hours through the night. She looks into her eyes when she wakes and thinks that her daughter will have her father’s eyes.

She is given a day, and then Mother takes her daughter. And Ashara’s heart breaks in two.

0

The war begins, and Father leaves. He does not return, killed on the Trident.

Arthur comes home for but a few days, holding his niece and calling her sister. He absconds with half a dozen ladies and a wetnurse, and everyone in Starfall knows what he has done. Ashara prays for the Stark girl, that she will not be treated as Ashara has been. She prays knowing full-well that mothers of royal bastards have never been treated well in Westeros, or mothers of princes.

Mother grows wan and pale after Father dies, and Ashara thinks, _no, not you too_ , as she slowly dies. Auron is Lord of Starfall now, with no heir but her and a babe with laughing gray eyes, and Ashara stares out of the Palestone Tower for hours on end.

She does not know what, exactly, she is looking for.

0

Eddard Stark is older now, face pale and drawn. He has with him a babe he calls Jon Snow, and Ashara would laugh if it weren’t such a bloody tragedy. Jon is housed in the nursery close to his cousin, and she looks in on him once in the night. Her heart is full with grief, and she needs to see something that knows nothing of it.

Instead she finds Ned ( _no, Eddard, he must be Eddard now_ ), standing over his nephew’s cradle.

“My lady,” he says, contrite. “I….”

And he breaks.

“I am so sorry, Ashara. I heard what happened. If I had known…”

She almost tells him the truth, then, but her mother’s words come back to her. _He could take your child from you_.

“We cannot focus on the past, Lord Stark,” says she who has wished to go back and change it all for years. She nods at Jon Snow. “He has the Stark look. Lucky, that.”

Eddard Stark’s face closes off, but Ashara just shakes her head.

“We won’t tell anyone, Lord Stark, but you must know that my brother is not a fool. Arthur _took_ Wylla from Starfall, and the other maids in your party. Not for his own sake, either.” Her voice cracks. She wishes it had been so, that her brother had had some legacy to pass on in death. She looks at Jon Snow, the boy who so looks like his mother one could not see his father in him, and wishes things could be so simple.

“Jon is my blood,” Eddard says. “That’s all that matters now.”

“I know,” she says.

She watches him ride off in the morning, her brother’s killer, her daughter’s father, aching with grief and rage and, worst of all, a horrid emptiness that she knows she cannot fill.

It is a week before she finds herself in the Palestone Tower again, trembling as she looks out over the waters. She is crying, she thinks, for the first time in years. She closes her eyes against the tears, tells herself to be strong. She knows that she would not be here if she were stronger.

Everything is gone. Everything. Except her, and she is ruined.

She does not know how to do anything but what she does next. If she had, maybe things would have been different.


End file.
